Soul Calibur 5 sells 1.38 million copies, about 1 million less than previous entry in series

i hope this isnt the end for the Soul games, SC5 is a great game

That makes sense.

I think a lot of it's down to the fact that the soul calibur games haven't been good since 2. I mean don't get me wrong but soul calibur 5 is better than 4, but it's not good as 2. Although hopefully future installements are better.

TBH this game suffered from 3rd Strike syndrome. A lot of new characters replacing old ones.

This is a great fighter, wish it got more play. The evo top 8 was soo good. The overall package feels a little rushed though.

I think Tekken will hit the goal, I sure plan on picking it up. I just hope TTT2 doesn't kill the SCV and VF5 scenes. VF5 is already rather dead online, but at least the level of play is always on the higher end.

With these games not reaching their forecasts, it would appear to prove oversaturation of the market is occurring again. TTT2 at 2 million I think will be reached with its international foothold. I don't want to sound like a cynic but it seems like the beginning of the end all over again.

That's a shame, since I love this game, despite the crap story and missing characters. It's my favorite game to play online other then skullgirls right now.

I'll be one of those projected 2 million buying TTT2, which looks awesome.

The game sold fine , it was never going to outperform SCIV wich marketed the hell of itself with the star wars characters .

Those sales figures seem pretty good when you consider how many other fighting games are out there competing with it.
However, I do think that the missing characters thing did have a tangible effect on units sold. I for one wasn't going to buy it because of how salty I was about Setsuka's omission. Thankfully I bought it anyway and I do really like it, but I fear many series loyalists shunned it because their main wasn't there.

Man. Just a few years ago a million copies was considered a platinum hit. Now it's considered bad?

I'm willing to bet this game made some pretty good bank, based off the fact that the team was rushed and they basically cut single player mode.

As long as they earn enough to keep the series alive, that's all I care for.

what i think they should do is just bring back the fighting styles of the characters they left out in 5 and put them in the next entry that and the create a soul should have their own weapon set like in SC3
put that in SC6 and you have a great fighter. also get rid of the meter (that's my opinion)

It's simple really Soul Calibur 3 was a disaster. Soul Calibur 4 was for the next generation hence why it sold well. Soul Calibur 5 didn't bring anything really new enough for the casual crowd, which let’s face it Casual is the ones who determine if a game will sell well. (There aren't enough hardcore gamers out there). SFxT didn’t sell well because not only did the hardcore not enjoy it, but casual people hated it. TTT2 will sell just due to the huge character roster, and again the casual audience will eat it up. DoA should do well just because so many people like how easy that game is to play. Another example would be KOF13, a beautiful game and a lot of fun, but that game doesn’t sell because of how difficult it is for the casual audience.

I am of the hardcore gamers, and I will be buying both TTT2 and DoA 5. I bought SC5 at launch and barely play it, due to it not being as fun as SC4 was when that was released.

IT'S THE DECLINE OF FIGHTING GAMES ONCE AGAIN!!
REMEMBER THE 90'S? CAPCOM & CO. OVER FLOODED THE MARKET WITH FIGHTING GAMES SO NONE OF THEM SUCCEEDED.

IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN!!

I hear ya #4 I enjoy the game very much, but the absence of Seung Mina, Talim and co. bugged me :/

It was the roster in my case--by omitting the majority of characters that the series stood upon, they also caused a loss of interest. It was a risky move to change the majority of the cast like that. And also, finding out that there were three "copy" characters in-game pretty much settled it for me, there was just not enough content to last me playing for at least a month.

You would be surprised to know how many people picked up SCIV for teh StarWarz

I luv this game too,I jus aint play it much due 2 then lack of customization options wen compared 2 previous 1s(ex. u cant put on socks wit shoes??f*ckin stupid n wen certain clothes r put on they balloon on ur character n looks silly),too many mimic characters,NO ZASALAMEL, wen my custom characters armor breaks it doesnt break in portions it breaks completely n my guys a$$ naked(h8 dat s*t)n I gotta pay 4 certain $h*t that probly woulda been free in the last installment....other than that, this is a good game

@#18

Yeah , and people forget how dead was SCIV's online and scene , compared to SCV , 8wayrun tourneys aside .
After the initial star wars frenzy only die hard SC fans stood by the game , and out of those plenty were quite frankly disgusted by it .

Meanwhile SCV is quite healthy and around . If anything , while unlikely to happens again , SCV was more hype during evo that SFXT or even MK .

The people talking about oversaturation might be right, but I really doubt fighting games will die out almost completely like last time.

SC4 sold 2+ million in 8 months compared to SCV selling 1.38 million in 6 months. You also have to take into account that SC4 came out during a time before this revival of fighting games in 2008 where as now there's more competition in the fighting game space with the market being oversaturated, so of course the game is going to sell less than the previous version.

I think it's great that SCV sold over a mil since not many fighting games reach that milestone. Hopefully the numbers justify an update or a sequel.

I enjoyed SC4 but I didn't upgrade because some of the characters I liked weren't in SC5. When SC4 came out I think it was only competing with MkvsDC.

Tekken Tag 2 will easily reach its goal, if not surpass it. Harada is too good at pleasing his fans and Capcom should take notes.

SCV is a far superior game to 3 and 4 in terms of game system and content as a competitive (and just plain fun) fighting game. But the lack of faith Namco had in it really hurt, with rushed development and low budget. The team made the right decisions, cutting casual oriented content in favor of what mattered to the competitive scene. But it did hurt the overall sales as word of mouth got around that SCV didn't have enough single player content.

Still, SCV has created a revival of the series among enthusiast players and that will help keep the franchise alive.

there are so many fighting games around, it was to happen, when you see the time you have to play to master a character you can't get all those games

They game was not as good as the other installments. It was extremely linear, and did not have many learning curves. It made many defense options useless, and the whole gauge thing just seemed like a unrequired gimmick. At least with the SoulBlade the gauge made you aware that at any moment your weapon could be lost. Customizations were bland and less extensive in comparison to three and even to four. I am not really surprised it did not sale that well. Every game that wants to be SF is not going to be SF, learn that Team Soul.

SCIV had Star Wars Characters including Starkiller (The Apprentice) back when the first Force Unleashed game was not out yet. Star Wars Fanbase bought the game because of their presence was a given and had more wide appeal then say an assassin from a popular stealth video game series.

SC5 sucked A$$. its no surprise it sold this low. SC games are getting worse in every installment. step your game up with that, Namco. at least Tekken Tag wont disappoint

#28
thats right,they shoulda brought Starkiller back,the AC guy is alright but Starkiller was waaay better n also there wer 3 guest characters

Eh... I'm not sure how I feel about SCV. My mind was set on learning Setsuka pre-launch and I waiiiiiited for the announcement of Talim I knew was inevitable. And yet, neither were there. Setsuka's "style" was given to Patrokolos A - who I don't really like at all - and Talim just... got axed.

The story mode, while it didn't offend me like it did others, did not really give those of us interested in the story any idea what the hell was going on with the other characters. They were just... sorta' there (yes, I'm one of those people that likes the story right alongside my competitive portion of the game darnit!).

I still bought it and enjoyed it, and think it's a solid game. Just lost interest for me when SFxT released and TTT2 started really building up steam (I've always been Teken fan anyhow).

That said, over a mil is still pretty damn good, though it is slightly worrying that tSCIV sold more, Star Wars attachment aside (and after all, SCV had Ezio man!). Hopefully the series doesn't die or anything; I think the Soul series deserves to continue. Just give them proper time to develop the game and the resources.

Unfamiliar characters is the reason this game sold less than SC4.

People need to accept that over saturation is bad. Games like Dead or Alive 5, Persona 4 Arena, Virtua Fighter 5 and Another Blazblue??? seriously... I can understand another tekken tag tournament because it has been years since the first one but there are way to many games out. I wish capcom and SNK could produce games like marvel and KOF more faster :S... I miss the days when we get a KOF game every single year.

+1 on the SCIV marketing thing.

SCIV tied up with Star Wars at a time when Star Wars was immensely popular. SCV has none of that, and replaced a lot of their mainstay cast with new characters.

Could be due to the over-saturation of the market or this generation coming to a close. Anyway, sad to hear the news.

Well, while not as good as they'd hope it's certainly not a bad sales number.

Hopefully the next one will do better, I'm certainly looking forward to it. And hopefully....

...it'll be on PC too. ;)

A lot of people have already talked about the oversaturation of the market, and I think it's starting to become true. Now Persona 4 is coming out, Tekken Tag 2, SCV and MK9 are still vying for space, SFxT, SF4AE and MvC3 are still splitting communities, and KOF and BlazBlue are dark horses that just keep getting more traction.

What producers need to understand is that more than any other game, fighting games NEED a community, and there needs to be a reason to dedicate hundreds of hours to getting good at a game. You can make 2 throwaway shooters a year, and players will eat them up as they go along.

But if you've got 8 fighting games on the market, each with their own community, and each with tall fences in between (just witness the hate levelled at SFxT and anyone who likes that game), then players aren't going to choose to dedicate themselves to more than one game, if they aren't turned off the FGC entirely.

Capcom, Namco etc. need to give these games at least two years just to breathe. Support them with patches. Organise tournaments. Bring out a couple of DLC add ons. But don't give us 2 new games when we're just getting to grips with the first ones!

Here's to hoping that Soul Calibur VI gets done better. To me, it still feels like Soul Calibur V was a cash-grab. Soul Calibur II, I played for hours on end, and I still play the PS2 and Xbox versions often. I was satisfied with SC III as well, though SCalibur IV seemed to bug me quite a bit. To be honest, I only played SC IV to get all the achievements, and after that, once in a while with my cousin.
Soul Calibur V didn't meet up to the expectations I had for it, especially in its variety of modes. The story mode was really a let down, in comparison to what they made us think we were going to receive. A number of us were expecting a story mode akin to that of MK9, but we got something that felt like rushed concept art. There was no engrossing conquest mode with various battle conditions. The major positive about the SCalibur V was the online mode. The quality was much better than what I was expecting.
As for the market being quite saturated with fighters, that's not such a bad thing in a digital age such as this. If a game is crap, people with hear about it quickly, and there wouldn't be any inflated sales, and then if the game is excellent, and offers a fun experience, people will hear about it, and the game may still succeed.
I don't play the CoD games, but there must be a reason Americans and other people like purchasing that game series year after year. Aside from Half-Life , Halo, Team Fortress, the next FPS I'm looking forward to in the heavily saturated market is the Rise Of The Triad remake/remix. If SCalibur V was a great game, it would have done better.
There are some others like me, who buy every fighter out in the market., and that may be why SCalibur V sold as much as a million. I know quite a number of Americans who returned their copies, and some crazies over here who broke their own.

@34
SC5 used Ezio at a point where Assassin's Creed is wildly popular. How is that not doing the same thing as SC4?

Seriously people, the reason it didnt sell as well is because content wise, I feel SC4 delivered more. Plus im sure havinf Vader, Yoda, and Starkiller didnt hurt.

NAMCO needs to spend more time on the soul series and a little less on the tekken series if they want to sell more. They also need to bring back styles from SC 3&4 and work on the story.